Part 40 (1/2)

”I'm beyond angry. I'm so p.i.s.sed off I feel like I'm going to have a G.o.dd.a.m.n stroke. Sooner or later the killer's going to contact Shade again, probably to arrange a meeting. And when that happens I have to know exactly where Shade is or I'll lose everything. And how can I know where the f.u.c.k she is when she's driving off the G.o.dd.a.m.n district DF grid with her G.o.dd.a.m.n uncle?”

”Don't be so vulgar, Jeffrey,” Simmons advised. ”It's not like you. And try not to be so selfish. There are perhaps more important things in Kathleen Shade's life than your homicide investigation. Such as resolving the traumas of her past. Put yourself in her place. It isn't her fault that her uncle happened to be paroled the same week that your killer decided to have a psychotic episode and start murdering people in your jurisdiction.”

Spence smirked.

”And, really,” Simmons went on. ”What reason could Shade have for abducting her uncle?”

”I don't know.” Spence's eyes thinned. ”s.h.i.+t, she's got a gun. Maybe she wants to kill him.”

”That's ridiculous, Jeffrey. Kathleen Shade is a magazine writer. She's not a killer.”

(III).

”I'll kill you,” Kathleen a.s.serted. She pressed the barrel of the pistol hard into Uncle Sammy's lower right side. ”If you try anything funny, I'll empty this gun in you. I swear I will.”

”Kathleen, please. Look, you've-”

”Be quiet and drive!” Kathleen yelled.

”Drive where?” Sammy very quietly inquired.

”Just keep going down 50. I need to be away from the city. I need to clear my head and think.”

For the first hour, she'd forced him to drive obliviously about the city, then ordered him to head out New York Avenue, which had long since changed into Route 50. She seemed jittery, confused. But one thing that never wavered was the barrel of that .38, wedged into Sammy's side. If she pulled off a shot, he knew, the bullet would take out his kidney and turn his small intestine into ground meat. But- She's not that crazy, he considered. he considered. Or is she? Or is she?

Sammy clammed up down 50, past the Bowie and 301 exits. Then he dared to speak: ”Kathleen, think about what you're doing. I did my time, I'm a free man with civil rights. You can't just grab people off the street at gunpoint. You'll go to jail. And you say you'll kill kill me? Jesus, Kathleen. You do that and they'll put you in jail for 25 years at least.” me? Jesus, Kathleen. You do that and they'll put you in jail for 25 years at least.”

”You think so? You're not a free man, Sam. I don't care how much time you did. You're a child p.o.r.nographer and a pedophile. And you're the guy who raped me for 10 years, remember? A child? I could blow your head off right now in cold blood, tell the jury that you tried to rape me again, and that would be that. You don't think they'd believe me? You think I'd go to jail for killing a pedophile?”

”Well, I guess you got a point,” Sammy conceded. Yeah, she sure as s.h.i.+t does. Yeah, she sure as s.h.i.+t does. He changed the subject. ”At least tell me what this is all about. What are you gonna do with me?” He changed the subject. ”At least tell me what this is all about. What are you gonna do with me?”

”We're going to talk,” Kathleen said. ”Take this next exit.”

Sammy veered the TBird right. The exit emptied out onto Davidsonville Road, and what faced them then was one of those PARK & RIDE commuter lots. ”Pull in there,” Kathleen instructed. ”Drive way around the back and park.”

She's not gonna snuff me, Sammy concluded. Sammy concluded. There's no way she's got the b.a.l.l.s There's no way she's got the b.a.l.l.s...

Sam silenced the rest of the consideration. He was sweating. He parked in the rear of the lot, between a pickup and a station wagon. Then he turned off the ignition.

Kathleen brushed damp hair out of her eyes. ”In your vast experience, Sam, how many children have you had s.e.x with?”

”Aw, Christ, Kathleen, I-”

”How many!” she lunged forward and shrieked.

The gun was poking into his side.

Sammy gulped. ”I don't know-”

The gun dug deeper, her hand turning white around its grip. ”All those sick films you made, you always got a piece of the action, didn't you? I'll bet you've raped hundreds of children over the years, Sam. Isn't that right? Hundreds?”

It probably had been hundreds, but what could he say? ”I never hurt any of the kids, Kathleen.”

”But I was your regular, wasn't I? Between 'runs,' whenever my father was out of town. Wasn't I?”

Sammy's head spun. ”You don't under-”

Kathleen c.o.c.ked the pistol and jammed it further. ”If you don't answer me, G.o.dd.a.m.n you, I swear I'll-”

”Yes! Yes!” Sammy yelled. ”You were...my...regular.”

Kathleen grinned maniacally. ”Yeah, your regular kiddie f.u.c.k. It takes a big man to brainwash a little kid so he can have s.e.x with her. But I wasn't the only only regular. I know that now.” regular. I know that now.”

Sammy's gaze slackened. ”What are you talking about?”

”I know all about it, Sam. Your little hideyhole. The common law wife you addicted to heroin and turned into a prost.i.tute. A woman you brutalized for years, offered up to your degenerate film friends, debased, tortured, raped-just for kicks.”

Sammy's mouth gaped.

The heat was cooking him. She insisted on keeping the windows up, the airconditioning off. But worse even than the heat were her words...

”But she had a daughter, didn't she, Sam? A little girl just like me. And you raped her too, between your p.o.r.no runs, when you weren't busy raping me. It's true, isn't it, Sam? You had a daughter, and you did the same thing to her that you did to me. Right?”

”Kathleen, I don't know where you're getting all this sh-”

”Don't lie to me, you G.o.dd.a.m.n b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” she screamed, ”Or I'll-” The pistol jerked up. The hammer fell- BAM!.

A round went off right in front of his face: a flash like a fireball, a h.e.l.lish concussion. The driver's window blew out, raining safety gla.s.s. Sammy hunkered down in the seat, his teeth gritted, flashburn on his cheeks. He urinated in his pants.

”Yes!” he admitted. ”Yes, there was another girl! For G.o.d's sake, Kathleen, please don't kill me!”

”You raped your own daughter,” the words croaked through particulate gunsmoke. ”For-what?-10 years? Fifteen?”

Sammy could only nod, gulping.

But when the smoke spread, Kathleen's face reappeared-a total transmogrification. Calm now, not hysterical. Completely in control.